


even if you can't hear

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Coda, F/F, Music, Reunions, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: Aqua suggests one day, soft and encouraging, “If you’d like, why don’t the two of us go and visit her?”And something in Aoi’s heart stops. It must, because Aoi’s sure that it’s not beating, struck with the realization that she could. They’re not little children anymore, reliant on their family’s hands and pulled apart against their wishes. If she wanted to, she could go.Aoi takes a breath. Her heart starts beating again, this time with resolution. “Okay,” she says, “Okay. Let’s go.”





	even if you can't hear

**Author's Note:**

> In my memories  
> There is you with seemingly sad eyes  
> Outstretching your hand towards the sky shaped by the clouds  
> Wishing for that freedom you imagined  
> I can't even replace the words (gifts) you said to me  
> I'll always keep them inside my heart and never let them go,  
> Never

There’s not much that Aoi can do for Miyu. Well, no. That’s wrong. She can do  _ everything _ for Miyu, but it’ll take time to topple Lightning. While they’re still short on leads, there’s nothing that Aoi can do for Miyu right  _ now,  _ is all. But it still makes her restless, makes her want to pace around her room and kick her feet beneath the classroom desk and just leave it all behind to scour every inch of LINK VRAINS with her own two hands. Aqua senses it clear as day. It shows in the way that she’s constantly encouraging Aoi, pushing her forwards and cheering her on with every step they make, no matter how small most of them feel. 

It’s probably why Aqua suggests one day, soft and encouraging, “If you’d like, why don’t the two of us go and visit her?”

And something in Aoi’s heart stops. It must, because Aoi’s sure that it’s not beating, struck with the realization that she  _ could. _ They’re not little children anymore, reliant on their family’s hands and pulled apart against their wishes. If she wanted to, she could go.

Aoi takes a breath. Her heart starts beating again, this time with resolution. “Okay,” she says, “Okay. Let’s go.”

 

It turns out that they don’t have to go far. Miyu lives in Den City now, though granted it’s the very far side of the city, out where Aoi hadn’t been before. She hops on a bus and goes anyway, fiddling with the strap of her bag and mind running through all the ways that things could go wrong the entire way there. Aqua can’t poke her head out in public, but Aoi can feel her presence, the one comforting thing about this.

In the end, Aoi slides smoothly through security by calling herself Miyu’s friend from school. She rides up the elevator, walks down the long hall to Miyu’s room- then pauses in front of the door, staring down at the handle. She sets a hand on it slowly.

_ Go on, _ Aqua whispers, loud enough for Aoi’s ears only- and then, finally, Aoi takes a breath and steps softly inside. It is a small room, all things considered. The bed is only a few steps away from the door, and a chair is set up on the closer side. Aoi moves to it, sits down as quietly as she can. It’s so terribly quiet. She’s almost scared to break it.

“Miyu,” she breathes, and the name on her lips is both a weight off her shoulders and the heaviest burden she’s ever carried all at once. The girl in the bed looks so frail, with eyes closed and chest moving slowly. The movement is probably supposed to be reassuring, but all Aoi feels is unease. She remembers what it means to fall victim to a virus like this. The screaming into the dark, the fear, the certainty that she’d been thrown to the pits of hell. 

“She might still be able to hear you,” Aqua says, patting Aoi’s wrist gently. But Aoi just lets out a long, long breath and thinks that she has no idea where to even start. From the thanks she’d always wanted to give, so long overdue? From her promise to save Miyu, the resolve that drives her forth? From a plain, reassuring  _ hello? _

“You don’t have to overthink it,” Aqua says with a small sound that might just be the polite version of a laugh. 

So Aoi takes a breath, sits down gently on the chair set out beside the bed, and collects her thoughts carefully before saying, just a whisper- “Hi, Miyu.”

 

In the end, she tells Miyu- and, by extension, Aqua- everything. About her life after the ring had fallen down through the grate, about Hanoi, about her brother and Ema, about Lightning and Playmaker and everything that Aoi can possibly think to say. Her loneliness, her pain, all the things she’s learned- in the end she spills them all over the days-weeks-months. They’re not easy stories to tell. They tear at the softest parts of her heart and threaten to ruin her- they would have, if it had been the her of even a day’s past. Now, it’s just kind of a relief.

If she’s being honest, she’s probably needed to tell someone all this for a very, very long time. But she’s had to be strong before Ema and Akira, and even Aqua too. The worry still lingers- if she confides in them, won’t they think she’s weak?- but in their own way, they’ve begun to rely on her, too.

She finishes her story on the eighth day she visits. And, because it feels right, she reaches out to take Miyu’s hand. With every bit of reassuring strength she possesses, she says- “But you know? I’m not alone anymore. I’m not weak. I’m not an adult yet, but I’m not going to act like a selfish child anymore, either. So I promise. I’m going to save you, and the two of us are going to catch up for real. I promise.”

She squeezes tight. Miyu doesn’t squeeze back, because miracles don’t come that easily, in this world. But that’s okay. Because Aoi isn’t scared of the fight- because this time, it isn’t to save herself. She’s already learned how to do that time and time again. This time, finally, she’s learned to move without hesitation. 

 

The only problem is, now she’s out of stories. She brings along  _ Blue Angel, _ reads it out loud a few times over the way Miyu used to do for her, huddled together in the shade under the park slide. She talks for hours about all the things she wants to take Miyu to do- dumb things, silly things. Normal high school antics that Aoi herself has never had the courage to try and reach for.

“But only if you want to do them, too,” she adds, thinking that the last thing she wants to do when she can see Miyu again properly is be  _ selfish.  _

From her duel disk sitting on the side of the bed, Aqua laughs and says, very soft, “I think that she’d like that very much, Aoi.”

The reassurance is nice. She’d like to think Miyu might like it, too. Two normal girls, out for a normal day. Doing their best, caring little for the world around them as they closed a decade’s gap. 

But she really does run out of things to talk about. She thinks of bringing other books and runs through her shelves, searching for something interesting and light, a fun little fantasy to take Miyu’s mind off the darkness. But none of the books feel right. She tries making up a story, but it doesn’t seem proper when she’s just told Miyu the most important one of all. 

She ends up sitting silent beside her bed instead, restless and feeling a tiny bit powerless still. And it’s only then that the idea comes to her.

It is impulsive, and stupid, but the song has been stuck running through her head all day. More like all week, really- Aoi takes a breath and begins at the chorus, so very quietly- 

_ I pray for the future you wished for _ __  
_ To be full of kindness _ __  
_ My only wish is to look _ _  
_ __ At the same sky of yours

  
_ If we meet again one day _ __  
_ I'll call your name with all my heart _ __  
_ I wish I got just one of the things _ _  
_ __ You wished for by that time-

The door opens. Aoi bolt straight up in her seat, cutting off the final line with a tight throat and racing heart. She stares down at the book in her lap, pretending to read and hoping desperately that no one had heard- 

“You have a lovely voice,” says the nurse, and Aoi tentatively lifts her head, blinks away at least a little bit of the embarrassment still burning through her cheeks red as Miyu’s hair.

“No, not really.” She says it instinctively, wishing that Aqua was in a position where she could appear and ease the situation, somehow. Aoi really just wants to attempt crawling under the bed and potentially never coming out. 

“Your friend is very lucky, getting to hear an angel sing,” the nurse continues, and Aoi thinks she might die. And if she’s doing this, but Miyu can’t hear her… Aoi pauses. Actually, it might be worse if Miyu  _ can  _ hear her. Imagine all this- having a friend you hadn’t seen in a decade come up and spill her entire life story and then  _ sing _ to you of all things, all while you’re unable to protest. Aoi just laughs awkwardly and dismisses the nurse’s compliments and thinks that either way, it’s absolutely mortifying. 

(That doesn’t mean she stops. She chose Blue Angel’s bright, idol-esque personality because on some level she’s always been drawn to it- the thought that one day, perhaps she could be like them too. Anything but melancholy and alone, cooped up in her room with a pack of cards for company. Idols were like the light, back then. But rather than become everyone’s, Aoi thinks, she’d really just like to be  _ Miyu’s.) _

 

Aoi paces nervous around the lobby, crossing her arms first in front of her, then behind her back, then dropping them to her sides to curl her hands in and out of absent fists instead. It turns out when someone wakes from a coma, someone ten years a stranger isn’t exactly high on the admission priority list, no matter how often she’s been visiting as of late. There is a quiet vibration from her duel disk. Aoi thinks that Aqua must be laughing at her.

But finally does her turn come. The door before her suddenly seems insurmountable again, and her hand shakes as she reaches out for it.  _ Deep breaths. _

One, two- Aoi opens the door. “Miyu?”

The girl in the bed blinks at her. She’s sitting up, this time, and her long hair falls messy around her shoulders. Her eyes are a little red. If she was crying, Aoi hopes that they were only tears of happiness. Aoi fidgets nervously before putting on her best smile and crossing the floor in long, bold strides. “Sorry. Maybe you don’t recognize me after so long.”

Miyu considers Aoi as she crosses the floor, looking her up and down- but Aoi’s changed immeasurably since she was six years old, and so has Miyu. If Aqua wasn’t here to lead her to the right person back during her first visit, then Aoi might not have recognized her either. But now she’s so terribly familiar, and so beautifully, wonderfully free. 

“I’m sorry?” Miyu says as Aoi steps up to her bedside, returning Aoi’s smile with an apologetically bewildered look. But that’s alright. Aoi knew this would happen, after all. She’s come prepared. 

Aoi takes a small box from the pocket of her skirt and hands it gently to Miyu, who lifts the lid with gentle confusion- and then she gasps, eyes wide at the emerald ring inside. It’s not the same ring, of course- but it’s a replica, as best as Aoi remembers. There’s probably a dozen things wrong. But still, Miyu looks up at her with such a hopeful sort of disbelief. “No… Are you… Aoi?”

Aoi smiles, and feels for a moment as if she’s about to cry. “I’ve wanted to say this for so, so long. Thank you, Miyu. Thank you so much.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that today more than yesterday,  
> And tomorrow more than today,  
> You'll always be filled  
> With wonderful days
> 
> Surely, even now, you're under this very sky  
> I hope you're proud of the future you've chosen  
> Since you are my  
> Most beloved
> 
> Until the day when we meet again…  
> Until the day when we meet again…  
> \- Umetora ft GUMI, "The Things You Wish For"


End file.
